Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Kohl Says Unification Requires Tax Hike; Flow of Foreign Refugees Seen Posing Date: Tue, 27 Oct 92 04:30:23 EST Message-ID: <1.1992Oct27.043023@AmeriCast.com> Kohl Says Unification Requires Tax Hike; Flow of Foreign Refugees Seen Posing BERLIN, Oct. 26 - Chancellor Helmut Kohl today dramatically reversed a key policy of his government, endorsing tax increases to help meet the costs of reunification, and he warned of a national "emergency" if the country does not halt the influx of foreign refugees. After months of watching quietly as the German economy slips to- ward recession and anti-foreigner violence spreads throughout the country, Kohl delivered the urgent and pessimistic message that his critics and, in recent months, even his closest advisers had implored him to send. "This is the hour of truth," he said at the start of a convention in Duesseldorf of his Christian Democratic Party. He described Germany's soaring deficit, the $265 billion debt left over from Communist East Germany and the continuing need to pump $100 bil- lion annually into the struggling east as "a dramatic situation in the history of our people." Today's address was the speech long advocated by many German pol- iticians as a wake-up call to a country suffering from a soaring deficit, high inflation, rampant unemployment in the changing east, a muddied self-identity, growing dissatisfaction with the political system, and an epidemic of assaults against refugees and Jewish memorials. It was also, a Kohl aide said, the chancellor's attempt to save himself from the political crises that threaten to wipe out President Bush, French President Francois Mitterrand and British Prime Minister John Major, all of whom are in decline because of troubled economic conditions and voter disaffection. "Friends, let's not fool ourselves," Kohl said. "United Germany needs more than just a continuation of old policies." Despite the choice of a friendly audience, only a smattering of applause greeted Kohl's call for Germans to quit sitting "in the grandstands of German unity" and start making sacrifices, includ- ing postponing further cuts in the national workweek, now 37 hours. With foreign refugees entering Germany at a rate of 60,000 a month, Kohl again demanded that the opposition Social Democratic Party agree to scrap the country's absolute guarantee of politi- cal asylum. "This influx is rising from month to month, leading to unbearable conditions in our cities and towns," he said. "If we do not act, we face the danger of a deep crisis of confidence in our democractic state - yes, even a national state of emergen- cy." Kohl wants to replace Germany's constitutional guarantee of asylum, a postwar atonement for Nazi abuses, with a limited right and a law allowing refugees to be turned away at the border if they arrive from countries Germany considers nonrepressive. The Social Democrats are to decide a new position on asylum at a special party congress next month. Kohl's speech comes after months of mounting criticism that he has elected to ride out the major crises facing the country. The chancellor, who has contended for three years that Germany can overcome the hardships of reunification without major sacri- fice, did not use the word "taxes" today, referring only to un- specified "income enhancements" that he proposes for 1995. He has said he will ask German voters for a fourth term in the 1994 parliamentary elections. The call for tax increases will also satisfy Germany's central bank, which last month agreed to a slight cut in interest rates only after Kohl said he would impose greater discipline on a bal- looning government budget. Bank president Helmut Schlesinger to- day warned of a "weakening economy," and the Economics Ministry has lowered its growth rate forecast for 1993 from 2.5 percent to 1 to 1.5 percent. Kohl's sharp words on what 96 percent of Germans consider a "foreigner problem," according to a new survey in Spiegel maga- zine, come after the 10th consecutive weekend of widespread anti-refugee violence. In addition to assaults on foreigners in six cities, right-wing extremists attacked two more memorials to Jewish victims of Nazi oppression. Vandals damaged a Jewish cemetery for slave laborers at the Ueberlingen labor camp, a satellite of Dachau concentra- tion camp near Munich. Also, police confirmed that the Ravensbrueck concentration camp north of Berlin was fire-bombed last Tuesday. News of the incident was not released until after the Berlin newspaper Tageszeitung published an article saying that local of- ficials kept the bombing quiet for fear of inciting critical press coverage abroad during last week's visit by Queen Eliza- beth. The Spiegel poll of 3,000 Germans found large majorities endors- ing anti-foreigner sentiments, including statements that foreigners "abuse our social system" (77 percent of Germans sur- veyed agreed), "heighten Germans' housing shortage" (74 percent), "increase unemployment among Germans" (60 percent), and "pose a danger on the streets" (59 percent). A separate survey by a leading opinion research institute in Mannheim published today found a sharp increase in the number of Germans who say they have grown skeptical of the country's demo- cratic system. Fifty-two percent of eastern Germans and 35 percent of westerners said they are dissatisfied with the country's current political system, up from 48 percent in the east and 22 percent in the west a year ago. Kohl was easily reelected party chairman by the delegates meeting in Duesseldorf today, but in a surprise move, Defense Minister Volker Ruehe, whose name has often been mentioned as a possible successor to Kohl, was rejected for one of four deputy party chairman posts, special correspondent Steve Vogel reported from Bonn. Elected in his place was a maverick eastern German politician, Heinz Eggert, interior minister of Saxony, who has criticized Kohl's leadership style. Before the collapse of the East German government, Eggert was a Protestant minister and led opposition to the Communist regime.<02:02 10-27C9999----- Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. 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